Texas House Approves Measure Restricting Transgender Kids' Use Of School Bathrooms

AUSTIN, TX — Along party lines, the Texas House on Sunday night voted to dictate the bathrooms transgender students can use in public schools based on their sex at birth rather than those labeled with the gender of their personal identities.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had threatened to extend the legislative session into the summer if a form of his envisioned bathroom measure — an effort he took on as a personal crusade of sorts — was not put to a vote. The conservative majority in the state Legislature ensured its passage, while Democrats were left to decry the measure as discriminatory. Several Democrats said the passed rule hearkens back to a time when public facilities were segregated according to race or skin color.

“We’ve lived through dark days in this country," State Sen. Eddie Rodriguez, a Democrat from Austin, said in a prepared statement after the measure was passed. "‘Separate but equal’ was the law of the land for decades and millions of Americans lived as second-class citizens based on the color of their skin. So-called ‘bathroom bills’ represent the next chapter in our nation’s shameful history of state-sponsored discrimination."

Rep. Senfronia Thompson, a fellow Democrat from Houston, echoed the sentiments. "I've lived through the separate-but-equal period," she said, as quoted by the San Antonio Express-News. "I remember those days. Bathrooms: White. Colored."

But Rep. Chris Paddie, the Republican from Marshall, Texas, who offered the bathroom amendment to a broader bill on school safety, insisted the move wasn't meant to be discriminatory. "In fact," he said, "it makes sure that there are reasonable accommodations for all children," he said from the floor of the House.

Patrick has gone far and wide in leading the charge to ban transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice, going on an full-court press media onslaught to explain his mission of protecting women and children from rape or sexual assault by pushing for the measure. Patrick has long framed the issue as one centered on safety even without available evidence suggesting that transgender people are predisposed to commit such assaults.

Before Sunday night's vote, the measure almost died on the vine given an abundance of other issues on the Legislature's busy plate. But adding an amendment to Senate Bill 2078 that regulates bathroom use in schools revived the divisive issue. The House passed SB 2078 on second reading by a vote of 92-49. Opponents fought against the measure until just past midnight on Sunday to no avail.

Rodriguez didn't buy Paddie's contentions that the amendment is not discriminatory: “Representative Paddie’s amendment was sold as an effort to protect Texas children, but it targets one of our most vulnerable populations for bullying and harassment. SB 2078 would keep transgender schoolchildren out of the bathroom they feel most comfortable using and single them out as different from their peers over something they can’t control."

Rodriguez also decried Patrick's tactics in getting one form of the bathroom bill passed. He originally had a broader ban in place that restricted transgender bathroom use at public facilities rather than just schools.

“There was no appetite for a ‘bathroom bill’ in the House, but in the final days of session Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick threatened to force a special session if the House would not help him deliver on his political promises," Rodriguez said. "Rep. Paddie’s amendment is not about child safety, it is the House capitulating to the lieutenant governor’s threat.

"The national ‘bathroom bill’ debate is driven by ambitious politicians exploiting fear and misunderstanding of transgender people. There is no room for compromise when it comes to discrimination.”

The measure passed despite growing opposition to it from many camps in the days leading up to Sunday night's vote. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of the nation's 45 leading Latino advocacy organizations, opposed the legislation by saying it would add yet another layer of discrimination to already-marginalized segments of the population.

"For LGBTQ Latinos who are already under attack from various anti-Latino and anti-immigrant federal and state policies, the efforts of state legislators to discriminate against people who are LGBTQ will further marginalize our LGBTQ Latino familia in Texas," Hector Sanchez Barba, the NHLA chair and executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, said on Friday. "The anti-LGBTQ bill being advanced in the Texas state Legislature are not sincere attempts to address the real needs of Texans, but are instead efforts by politicians to make political gain at the expense of vulnerable populations."

Like other critics, Barba said the bill amounted to discrimination. "Bills that enshrine discrimination into state law are wrong and should be rejected," he said.

The bill is expected to be approved by the Texas Senate next and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott when it reaches his desk.